In Love and War
by Janina86
Summary: Ginny has to deal with her decisions


_In Love and War_

When it gets dark and she has to whisper _lumos_ softly to see anything, she has the plates removed; hers untouched, her husband's as empty as his chair.

She ignores the maid who looks inquiring and obviously curious and closes her eyes. She is tired and yawns in the dark of the dining room. It's hard for her to keep her eyes open, but she knows that she wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. Not now, not when he's not home, when he is in danger. She sends the maid to bed nervously, and walks around the room. Minute for minute, hour for hour.

She recalls something he said on their wedding day, as she begged him to finally stop risking his life every day. "You'll get used to it, Ginny," he had said quietly, warningly, with a voice that didn't allow objection. "Someday it will get easier for you."

How little he knows about a wife's life. The constant waiting, worrying, the disability to do anything or to help. Just sitting around at home in a dark house, surrounded by people she doesn't know in rooms that scare her.

But still- she is there and waits. Sometimes hours, sometimes the whole night, sometimes even weeks. And until now, he has always returned.

This time he returns as well, as healthy as he left the house. He is even paler, however, his voice a nuance colder when he speaks to his father or the servants.

"Ginny," he only says, as he enters the room. She breathes a sigh of relief, and runs to him, happy to see him healthy.

They don't talk much about what happened, what he had done, where he had been and what he had seen. He knows that she doesn't want to know, that she doesn't want to talk about it with him.

That her position in this war is different from his.

So they talk about trivial things. She envisions voyages, talks about all the things she wants to see, all the things she wants to do. He responds, and just as they avoid speaking about the war, they avoid speaking about the past.

They don't know when it will catch up with them. And until then, they have to use the time they have as well at it is possible.

When she wakes up at night, she almost acts automatically by turning around and making sure that he is still there, still safe. When he's asleep he looks totally different than when he is awake. Sometimes she thinks that only in his sleep or when they are alone, he is who he really is, who he wants to be. He almost looks vulnerable, his blonde hair tangled up on the cushion, his body only covered by a thin blanket.

How easy it would be to do something to him. A quick word, a flick with the wand. There wouldn't even be blood spilled.

This thought crosses her mind without her wanting it, without her being able to control it. Then, for a brief moment she can see images in front of her closed eyes, faces she has once known. Green, honest eyes, different than his eyes but still just as familiar. She sees herself, laughing, different than she laughs today. Freer, innocent. And for this brief moment she wonders whether she made a mistake, whether she had made the wrong decision.

She manages to put away those doubts until the sunlight crawls along her body and chases them away. The she remembers who she is today and that the past is gone.

That she has made her decision.

Sometimes Hermione calls and the doubts defy the daylight and stay with her during the whole conversation. Mostly, Hermione invites her to feasts and functions, absolutely aware that Ginny will reject. That she has to reject

In war there is no friendship, only cold, bitter politeness.

She wonders what Hermione would say if she would accept on of her invitations, if she would turn up at one of those feasts. Welcome back, Ginny?

Not really.

When Hermione called her a year ago and invited her to she and Ron's wedding, Ginny had hesitated a moment, touched by memories. She remembers the warmth those two have always radiated, the happiness she has always connected with them, the heated arguments and the intense making up.

Her hesitation had aroused an uncomfortable silence on the other end of the line, and she had said 'no' before she was even done with thinking, before the memories had left her. She had looked at the telephone, shaking, until her husband came up and took her into his arms and pulled her away from the phone.

"It cannot go on this way," she says this night, without caring for his pale face or the bloody scratch on his cheek. He doesn't say anything for a long while, only looks at her.

"Do you love me," he finally asks in the same cold voice he had spoken with her a long, long time ago: as if he were insulting her.

And still, she doesn't hesitate a single second.

"I love you," she says honestly, and a quick smile crosses his face, brightens it up and warms up the room.

"Then it has to go on this way."

Hermione calls less the more the war proceeds, and Ginny reads in the newspaper that Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, celebrated his completion of Auror-training on a warm day in June and married a colleague named Lucy. The Daily Prophet reports enthusiastically about the "amazing feast" that "made everyone forget about the terrible war for a few hours".

She is surprised that this article doesn't hurt, that she is not disappointed that nobody invited her. It is like the final push into the abyss, the final exclusion from the lives of people that had once been her friends.

She wonders whether they were right, if she really had become heartless by living here.

But when Draco returns that night and hugs her, and she feels her heart break when she looks at his pale face, she knows that they were wrong.

She loves. How could she be heartless?

The next time Draco leaves, Hermione calls again, this time to invite her to her child's baptism. Her child and Ron's.

Something inside Ginny starts to boil, and when she imagines both of them with a baby in their arms, looking at her with pity, she explodes.

No.

"Why are you doing this, Hermione," she says coldly and is pleased when she realises that her voice almost sounds like her husband's. With the same pleasure she registers that Hermione gasps for breath, when she comes to the same conclusion. But Ginny pulls herself together, asks unsuspectingly:

"What are you talking about, Ginny?"

Ginny puts her hand in front of the mouthpiece for a second and tries to calm down, tries not to scream her whole anger into the phone and at the same time she wonders why she should also pull herself together.

"Why are you calling me? I know that you don't want to see me. It's useless to be polite to me."

Silence. Then a quiet, hesitant answer:

"I want to see you, Ginny. I miss you. We all miss you. It's just-" her voice trails off, she chokes. "It's difficult to understand you."

Ginny's voice is just as quiet when she answers. In fact, it is hardly audible anymore, even to herself.

"I love him. What's there not to understand?"

Then she puts down the phone, sits down on the floor and starts to weep. Finally, after three years, she cries about the whole situation, what she feels, and what she isn't allowed to feel.

When Draco returns four days later, he tries not look at her, goes to bed immediately and as she looks at the newspaper he next morning, she knows why.

Ron is dead.

Breakfast feels like a wall of silence. Ginny's eyes are red and her thoughts are visiting the past, running through the Gryffindor common room, dancing around her brother, who plays chess vividly. He makes a clever move and beats her by a mile, cheeks flushed from excitement. She sees him laughing, sees herself laughing and realises that she will never experience that moment ever again.

She sees the baby that only is a few months old and now has to grow up without a father. Sees Hermione how she looked at Ron lovingly, forgetting all her duties as a prefect and kissing him in the middle of the common room.

And she sees him the way she last saw him, this time his cheeks flushed from anger, from fear. "You cannot marry him, Ginny," he had screamed, until she had turned around and run away, only defiance in her eyes.

She would never be able to say sorry for that.

Draco is loud. He screams at the maid and ignores Ginny's tears the best he can, incapable of saying something that would comfort her.

She tries not to look at him when she asks the question that has been burned into her mind.

"Did you kill him?"

He doesn't answer, just looks at her, eyes cold, the barrier built up again.

She understands.

This night she is awake but she doesn't open her eyes because she knows she couldn't resist the temptation. Not tonight, not after everything that has happened. Instead, she keeps her eyes closed and banishes the possibilities Draco's unprotected body offers her and thinks of someone she hasn't thought of for far too long.

Harry.

How would he cope with Ron's death?

She recalls their last meeting, the last words she has heard from him.

"How can you love a Death Eater, Ginny? He's our enemy!"

"No," she had replied at that time. "He is your enemy."

She sees again Harry's expressionless face as she said goodbye and the memory blurs as a white, warm arm embraces her.

When she opens her eyes she expects to see green ones, but the ones looking at her are grey and deep and full of warmth.

"I love you, Ginny", Draco says, and she knows he means it.

She doesn't answer, only tries to smile and turns around and closes her eyes.

She wonders how far love can go.

Months pass by, and the war continues but Hermione doesn't call again. No invitations, no weddings, no baptisms.

It's difficult for her to admit it to herself, but she is somehow relieved that Hermione doesn't call. That she doesn't have to listen to her throaty voice, that she doesn't have to be confronted with her brother's death again.

She cannot think of Ron without feeling her throat cording up and she cannot look at Draco without seeing all those images, all those memories.

More and more people die, and the newspapers are full of obituaries. Ginny doesn't read them because she doesn't want to know who died.

Draco stays away longer, spends less time at home. He feels that Ginny changes, that she shuts herself away from him.

On their second wedding day, he takes her hand and walks through the garden with her, ignoring the bitter coldness.

When they're home again, he speaks, tells her that he loves her, that he is sorry. She nods, says:

"Then stop it."

He closes his eyes, shakes his head.

"I can't. It's too late." Then he takes out a piece of paper which has been folded twice and read countless times and gives it to her. Before she is able to unfold and read it, he makes her look at him. He looks into her eyes, as clear and honest as he can.

"I will accept every decision you make," he says, then mutters something and runs into the living room, slamming the door closed behind him.

She unfolds the paper carefully and reads it, once, twice. Then she slowly nods and looks at the closed door; looks at what never really was her home for the last time.

Suddenly she knows what is right.

When Draco enters the bedroom that night, he finds the paper on his bed. He skims through it, quickly, although he already knows it by heart. All invitations to funerals are the same, he already knew that as a child.

But under the addresser, under the squiggled Grieving, Ron's family, he sees another paragraph.

_Thank you, Draco. I will always love you. Never forget that._

He tries out a smile. Of course he won't forget it.

It's all that matters to him, after all.

Hermione hugs her without hesitating a second and pulls her into an embrace, crying.

"Ginny", she mutters. "I'm so glad you're back."

Ginny smiles, forced, but it is a smile. She glances along the other guests, and sees her parents, her brother, everyone smiling at her. She doesn't see reproach, only relief.

Harry emerges out of the crowd and takes Ginny's hand.

"We missed you."

She closes her eyes and pulls Harry close. Her smile melts and becomes tears that drown Harry's jumper. He strokes her head carefully, as if he were afraid she might break.

"Can you forgive me?", she finally asks, sniffing. "Can you…" She hesitates, searches for the right words. "… love me again?".

"There is nothing that can't be forgiven", Harry says, and tries to smile. "And we never stopped loving you. Love doesn't change that quickly, you know that."

She nods.

Yes, love doesn't change that quickly.

She knows that.


End file.
